


It Never Rains But It Pours

by CrackingLamb



Series: One Shot Wonders, A Collection of Junkyard Dogs Stories [10]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Food Play, Handy Raisin is still Handy, Helps if you've read Junkyard Dogs, Realistic Settlement Problems, and Repairs, but it's not necessary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 02:20:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: It's a terrible, no good, just awful day in Sanctuary Hills.  But all's well that ends well, right?





	It Never Rains But It Pours

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my own terrible, no good, just awful day recently, and Jayce Carter, who said I should turn it into a fic. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The steady rain on the metal roofing slabs had at first soothed Nora as she slept next to Hancock, but now it woke her with its annoying continuance. They'd had a long walk back from Goodneighbor in the incessant downpour the day before. Mud slicked the roads, the heavy precipitation kept visibility low and it sneaked through every layer she'd been wearing, leaving her cold, soaked and irritable. For four days it had been raining. Four long, grueling days in a world where an umbrella was only worth its component parts. At least the weather had kept the raiders, super mutants and various forms of wildlife in their respective dens.

“Mom, I'm bored,” Shaun called from his room, his uncanny ability to know when she was awake still surprising her. She huffed out an exasperated breath, rolled away from Hancock's dead weight – that ghoul could sleep through anything – and got to her feet, throwing a threadbare robe over her shoulders.

She went across the hall to her son's room and saw that he'd already dismantled a sniper rifle scope, a drum magazine and even an alarm clock. The parts were neatly stacked and lined up on the small work table she'd built for him, his microscope and camera sitting next to the bits and pieces in their usual place. She smiled at her son, who was frowning at his window, where she could see the steady drip of the rain against the glass.

“I know, honey. I can do a lot of things, but I can't make the weather change.”

“I wish Curie was here,” the synth boy grumped. Nora wisely didn't reply to this – Curie was currently building a better distillery for the Castle; Shaun was not happy about it and missed his favorite tinkering partner – and left his room to start a pot of coffee.

Well, what passed for coffee these days, anyway. She preferred hubflower tea, sweetened with precious honey from wild bees, but Hancock would need the stronger brew made from the roots, baked, dried and ground into something that certainly looked like coffee even if she thought it tasted like dirt. She supposed she shouldn't complain, though. It was better than him taking endless Mentats. He really did try to keep his chem use to a minimum around Shaun.

The Luxobrew was perking along on its hotplate, filling the house with the scent of somewhat burnt vegetation, when Hancock stumbled down the hall into the living room of their Sanctuary Hills home. He had yet to button up his shirt, and Nora was momentarily distracted by the sight of his low slung jeans and bare chest. He didn't understand why she found him so appealing, and she would be hard pressed to explain the whole of it herself, but the fact remained that her ghoul husband never failed to get her interested in shutting out the world, even if their son was home.

“Mornin' Sunshine,” he croaked.

She grinned at him teasingly. “Hey, baby. Rough night?”

“I need a pick me up. Ugh, it's still raining,” he muttered, looking out the large window onto the nearly flooded street of the settlement. Barely visible through the torrent they could both see settlers hurrying about, from the marketplace to the garden patch, and from workshop to their various homes. Sanctuary had grown from a handful of houses to a sprawling village on both sides of the creek, not that those new houses were discernible from here.

Nora had just poured a mug of steaming coffee for Hancock when she happened to see Preston's distinctive hat hunched against the rain as he hurried towards their door. “Hancock, it's Preston. Can you let him in?”

Hancock growled something unintelligible, but went over and opened the door before Preston could knock, inviting the dripping man in.

“Coffee?” Nora asked after Preston wiped his feet and shook out his coat.

“No thanks, General. I have some news that's gonna need your attention.”

Nora's face took on the stoic expression she reserved for Preston's version of news, hoping it wasn't another raider attack on a far flung settlement. She was in no mood to tramp through the mud again. “What is it?”

“The water purifiers are down.”

“What do you mean, down?”

“They've stopped working.”

Hancock barked with laughter, but stifled it quickly when he saw the look on her face. She could admit it was ironic that in the midst of the worst rain the Commonwealth had seen since she woke up the water purifiers went down, but that didn't mean she would laugh about it in front of a very concerned Minuteman. Even after more than a year of peace since the Institute's fall, Preston was still every inch the serious civilian militiaman he'd always been. Besides, a lack of rad free water was serious for a settlement of humans.

She heaved a sigh, took Hancock's mug from him and swallowed a large gulp of scalding coffee, made a face at it, then nodded to Preston. “Just let me get changed.”

“I'll wait, General.”

While she went through her drawers to find something she didn't mind getting soaked and filthy in, Hancock came into the bedroom, finishing up his buttons before looping his flag around his narrow waist. “It never ends, does it?” he asked a touch ruefully.

“Nope, it doesn't.”

“You gonna need some extra hands or should I stay here with Shaun?”

“I'll probably need your hands. Sturges's too. Shaun can keep himself busy with his books and his tinkering.”

Hancock put his arms around her from behind as she shook out a mechanic's coveralls and drew her in tight to his chest. She could feel his heat seep through the thin material of the old robe and hummed a little. Nearly two years together and she still got a thrill in the pit of her stomach when he held her like that. “I'd like to keep you busy,” he murmured into her ear.

“I'm sure you would. But duty calls.”

“Fuck duty.” He untied the robe and slid his hands inside it, running his rough palms over her skin until she shivered.

“John, stop that now. I can't afford for you to distract me...especially with Preston waiting by the door.”

“Oh fine,” Hancock laughed. He stopped teasing but still snagged the robe as she shrugged it off. “Guess the memory of the view will have to keep me warm til later.”

Nora turned so he could get his fill of looking at her and shook her head at him in bemusement. “You really are incorrigible, you know that?”

“Yeah, but you love me.”

She stepped into the coveralls and leaned in to plant a quick kiss on his lips. “Yeah, I do. Sooner we get this done, the sooner you can make good on 'later'.”

“Now that I can work with.” He didn't bother with his frockcoat, instead pulling on a ratty padded jacket over his well worn shirt and jeans, topped off with his usual tricorn hat. “Bet you'll be all chilly too.”

“Hmm, more than likely.”

“Ooh, cold hands. Can't wait.”

Hand in hand they went back to meet Preston at the door, where he stood rather sheepishly attempting to make it look like he hadn't been eavesdropping. His dark skin didn't show a blush very well, but Nora would bet his ears were burning hot from it. She sighed internally; these old houses were more rust than walls, and sound passed through them as if they weren't even there. She wasn't sure how they hadn't scandalized Shaun yet, unless her synth child simply slept like the dead.

“All right, let's get this show on the road,” she said, stepping out into the downpour. She realized too late that she should have grabbed her broad brimmed militia hat. The trio ran across the road to the shelter of the workshop where Nora poked in her head and called for Sturges. Her other favorite handyman – Hancock would always be first in that running – was already grabbing tools as he came out of the back room that he'd turned into his own sort of work space.

“Gotta feelin' it's the filters themselves. Prolly ripped somethin' awful with all this rain,” Sturges commented as they headed back outside.

“The generator is still working?” Nora asked him as they crossed through the garden plot and down the hill towards the creek. She shook the rain out of her eyes and lamented not going back for her hat. Hancock took pity on her and dropped the tricorn on her wet hair. At least it shielded her face from the worst of it.

“Yup, still pumpin' out juice,” Sturges said, the short exchange between them not interrupting his flow of thought. “Jus'...no water comin' from the spouts.”

They reached the low stone wall that bordered the creek and hopped over it, sloshing through the shallows until they could get at the purifiers. Both of them had stopped producing, and it only took a quick look to see why.

“Damn,” Hancock said, lifting out a ring of worn through rubber seal from the edge of the nearest purifier. “It's like it dissolved.”

“Rotted through,” Nora said, taking the rubber bit from Hancock's hand and rubbing it between her fingers. Small particles came off the seal, crumbling almost into dust in her palm. “Too much rad exposure.”

“Would the rads in the water even do that?” Preston asked from the wall above.

“Maybe not entirely, but these get pretty constant sunlight too. The UV would dry this rubber out pretty fast.” The three men looked at her blankly and she remembered that hardly anyone understood about the sun's radiation these days, other than pre-war ghouls and Curie. Well, maybe Nick too, if his memory circuits still held that sort of trivia. “Ultraviolet rays. It's what makes the sun burn your skin. It's a wavelength of light that isn't visible to the eyes...” She trailed off when she saw that only Sturges seemed to be following her. “Anyway, it's probably what caused this, and then all the waterlogging in the system just made the seals burst and all the water ran out before it could be gathered. In this rain no one noticed until there wasn't any on hand.”

“Should be an easy fix, then, right?” Sturges asked, stripping off all the worn seals he could reach.

“Here's hoping,” Nora replied, handing the tricorn back to Hancock. If she was going to have to get into the workings of the purifiers, it would only get in her way. “Preston, could you and Hancock bring down some ladders so we can reach the high ones, please?”

“Sure thing, General.”

In the end, it _was_ an easy fix. New rubber seals on all the pipes and the purifiers were ready to start up again. Granted, it would take a day for them to fill and start producing clean water again, but at least they hadn't needed to be replaced entirely. Hancock volunteered to made up a batch of RadAway, while Nora and Preston went through the stores of Rad-X to distribute to the settlement in the meantime.

It was midafternoon by the time Nora and Hancock went back to the house, soaked and exhausted but happy things worked out so neatly. Shaun had assembled something from all his parts and gizmos and proudly showed it to them when they walked in. It was a new mod for Hancock's shotgun.

“Thanks, kiddo. This will go great with that combat shotgun your mother gave me.”

Shaun grinned and danced in place, a trait Nora recognized from herself when she got too excited about something to hold it all inside. It was still a little odd to see such mannerisms from someone she knew was a synth, but considering he was a perfect clone of Father, she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. For a moment her heart ached at all she'd missed when her son was stolen from her, but she reminded herself – as she did nearly every day – that her synth son had given her a second chance.

“Mom, can I go over to the workshop? There was something Sturges wanted to show me.”

“All right, honey, just don't tire Sturges out, all right? We've been working on the water purifiers all day.”

“Okay Mom.” Shaun dashed out into the rain and across the street like a red striped flash, while Nora watched him, shaking her head.

“You know what that means, Sunshine?”

“What's that?” she answered blithely, still watching Shaun as he disappeared into the workshop.

Hancock's hands wrapped around her waist, turning her away from the door. “I've got you all to myself.”

“Hmm, so you do.” Nora wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing herself up to her full height to do it. It was a source of endless amusement to Hancock, who wasn't all that tall, that Nora had to reach since she was so tiny. She kissed him sweetly and pulled back a bit to look him in the eye. “But I need some food first, babe. All I've had today is a sip of that gunk you call coffee.”

“All right, how 'bout you go get out of those wet things and I'll bring you something to eat.” He wiggled his nonexistent eyebrows at her and she giggled, but hurried off down the hall just the same.

Hancock looked over their stores and found some mutfruits in the cold box – another of his pet projects with Sturges's help, proximity to a cryogenic Vault helped too – and a large brick of yellowish cheese sent up from the Abernathy farm. Their cow brahmin had had a calf last year, and gave more milk than she needed. Blake and Nora had tinkered for two weeks trying to find a way to make a good, hard cheese that would keep from it, and the results were finally being tested. Hancock shook his head at the thought. The process was rather strange, and he didn't understand how storing blocks of it in a root cellar for months at a time changed both texture and flavor, but he couldn't complain about the end product. Salty and sharp, the brahmin cheese was indisputably good, even if it had taken getting used to. He grabbed a hunk of leftover bread that he'd made a few days earlier and put all of it on a plate to carry down to their room.

Nora was toweling off her dripping hair with her back to him when he came into the room, the drenched coveralls already a pile in the laundry basket. He enjoyed the curves and lines of her body for a moment before she turned halfway and saw him.

“Don't mind me, just admiring the view,” he murmured.

“You always say that,” she said.

“I always mean it too,” he rejoined, putting the plate down on the table next to the bed. “I would never complain if you just walked around naked all the time.”

“I think I would get cold.”

“Well, c'mere and let me warm you up.” Nora dropped the towel on top of the coveralls in the basket and stepped into his open arms, burrowing against him and his ever present heat. He grinned wolfishly down at her; he never passed by the opportunity to touch her, or failed to take advantage of his ghoulish side effects, for that matter. She loved his body heat, and he knew it.

“So what did you bring me to eat?” she asked from the crook of his neck.

“Some cheese and bread, and some mutfruit from the cold box.”

“A veritable peasant feast,” she said softly. He didn't always get her pre-war references, but he didn't care. They were alone, he had his arms around her and he wasn't going to waste time asking questions. He stroked his hands up and down her back, grateful that she'd finally put on some weight. It had taken her months to adjust to the Commonwealth's new options for food, and for a while she'd been deathly thin because of it. With so many settlements producing crops, food was more plentiful now, and she was creative in disguising meat from insects and critters into something not only tasty but healthy.

She pushed away from him and began untying the flag around his waist, her nimble fingers making short work of it. Before he knew it, she'd unbuttoned his shirt too and tossed it on the floor. “So...” she said, pitching her voice in a sultry way. “You gonna feed me or fuck me?”

“Hmm, both, I think,” he replied, propelling her to the edge of the bed before toppling her into it and stripping off his jeans. He was reminded of the first time he'd made bread for her, and how he'd fed it to her in bites as he made love to her. The combination of food and sex had been strangely alluring, and he'd been wanting a chance to do it again.

Nora laid back against the pillows and waited while he broke off a piece of bread and a crumble of cheese and fed it to her. She hummed in pleasure at the food and wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him closer. His erection bumped up against her center and she jolted; he grinned. It seemed she hadn't forgotten that day either, considering how he slid along the wetness already gathering there.

“More, John,” she whispered, her hands snaking across his back, pressing him to her. With a tilt to his hips he slid into her and simultaneously grabbed blindly for the plate. His hand closed around a mutfruit, squishing it a little as his body settled into hers with a long stroke. Cold juice dripped off his hand and onto her neck and chest as he brought to fruit to her lips and she squealed.

“Sorry, love, let me clean that up.” He licked up the sticky juice from her skin, feeling goosebumps rise on hers as his warm tongue met the chilly droplets. She bucked under him, her ankles locked together on his back.

“Skip the food...” she gasped, pulling him in deeper. “I'll eat later...”

He made her finish the fruit in his hand with a stern look, keeping a firm pressure against her with his hips to stay seated in her body. She flexed around him, very nearly making him lose control, but he managed to keep it. She turned his own tactic on him, sucking the juice off his fingers, her eyes never leaving his. Anticipation crawled up his spine. Once she was done, he planned to make her pay for her teasing.

When Nora was finished cleaning him up, Hancock braced his hands near her shoulders and pushed so deep she cried out and curved up her body to meet him. Again and again he pounded at her, each thrust bringing them both close to climax. They didn't have to worry about keeping quiet since Shaun wasn't there and she moaned, gasped and shouted. He could feel the pressure building in her from the way her muscles tightened on him and he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“Come for me, Nora. Let me hear it.” His words seemed to push her over the edge and she pulsed on his cock, low keening noises escaping from her lips as she came. She clutched at him, digging her nails into his back and her thighs gripped him around his hips. With a shuddering groan of his own, he filled her to overflowing, his come running out of her to pool on the bed. He wished he could stay inside her forever, but he pulled out, knowing they shouldn't leave the irradiated evidence of their lovemaking there where it could harm her. Most of the time he didn't mind being a ghoul, but this was one time he wished he wasn't.

He cleaned her up with the damp towel she'd dried off with earlier, folding it and laying it out underneath her while she finished eating her bread and cheese. She grinned at him, totally unself-conscious about eating naked in bed, while he lay beside her, toying with an unlit cigarette.

“Good enough?” he inquired lazily.

“You never fail to please,” she answered, equally as languid and sleepy.

He chuckled and left the bed to dress. As much as he'd like to keep her there for the rest of the day – and he did – he knew Shaun would be home soon, and they had other duties to attend to. The life of General Howard was never a boring one, at least.

Nora finished her food and pushed herself out of the bed to get dressed again. Hancock had wandered back into the kitchen and she could hear him puttering around. Soon enough she heard the coffeemaker gurgling and smiled to herself. Just as she pulled a flannel over her favorite tee she heard the front door bang open as Shaun came home from the workshop. She threw the covers over the messy bed and went out to see her son.

He was muddy up to his knees, his red hair plastered to his head and his shirt dripping on the floor. She sighed, partially in exasperation and partially in amusement, the constant state of motherhood, she was finding. “Do I even want to know?” she asked.

“Aw, Mom...”

“Go on, get out of those wet things and take a bath, young man.” Nora and Hancock shared a look over the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. Parenthood sat well on her husband, she mused. And it was nice to have someone to share all of life's little moments with. Good, bad and everything in between. At that moment, a bright shaft of sunlight poured through the windows; the rain had finally stopped. "It's about goddamn time," Nora muttered.

“Mom! There's no hot water, it's just cold,” Shaun called suddenly from the bathroom.

Nora groaned.

Hancock just laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you haven't read Junkyard Dogs, Hancock builds Nora a hot water tank (with Sturges) from an old refrigerator, he also learns to bake bread using Commonwealth ingredients...like beer. 
> 
> I imagine liquid nitrogen was used in the cryo pods, and enough would remain that it could be salvaged and converted to make cooling units. You can scav nitrogen tanks in hospitals, after all.
> 
> I equally imagine it wouldn't be too hard to make cheese from brahmin milk, assuming they still have double stomachs and rennet is still produced by them (that's what makes milk curdle into cheese). Cheddaring is the process by which we get cheddar cheese. Mostly it's about adding continual pressure to a brick of curds in a cool, dry environment for months at a time. The longer it ages, the harder - and better - it is.
> 
> And last but not least, yes, rubber will degrade over time due to UV exposure. I'm not sure exactly what rubber is used for in making industrial water purifiers, but I would assume it's for sealing all those pipes and keeping them flexible. It's probably a stretch to think that the rads in the water itself would make that degradation happen faster, but hey, it's my fic, so I say it contributes.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, leave a comment or a kudo if you're so inclined. Feedback is the lifeblood!


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